Something that kind of disappoints me is that most of the new technology from the ’80s onwards has been about the atomization of society. It’s been about you being able to be more and more separate from everybody else. That’s why I don’t like the headphones thing. I don’t want to be separate in that way.

I think one of the great drivers of the mess that we’re in now is the increasing atomization of society into more and more individuals and fewer and fewer communities. I want to see ways of communities being built again. Now, of course, the internet has created new types of communities. But unfortunately, it’s done it in connection with social media, which has meant that there’s this sort of ... it’s like a very intense form of masturbation. Where everything is self-referential and it’s possible to create communities that are so sealed off from everybody else that they become convinced that the whole world is clearly how they see it. 

Brian Eno